International News

24/09/2024

Lebanon Suffers Heavy Casualties from Israeli Airstrikes: Hezbollah Launches Counterattack. The Lebanese Health Ministry reports 558 deaths, including 50 children, and 1,835 injuries from Israel's airstrikes. In response, Hezbollah has targeted Israeli air bases with missiles, leading world leaders and the United Nations to push for urgent de-escalation.

23/09/2024

Russia and Ukraine face off over Kerch Strait
Ukraine accuses Russia of flouting maritime law by restricting Kerch Strait flanking occupied Crimea.
The warring nations faced off at an international court in the Netherlands on Monday to fight over the strategic waterway that lies between mainland Russia and the occupied Crimean Peninsula.

23/09/2024

Gaza’s Health Ministry says 24 Palestinians were killed and 60 wounded in the latest 24-hour reporting period.
Israeli forces pound Gaza, killing a mother and four of her children in an attack on Deir el-Balah, and 10 more Palestinians in two separate attacks on schools-turned-shelters.

21/09/2024

Israel’s war on Gaza : 22 killed in attack on school shelter
At least 22 Palestinians have been killed by an Israeli strike that hit a school sheltering displaced people in Gaza City.
Israeli forces and Hezbollah carry out new attacks along the Lebanon-Israel border.

13/06/2024

Central, southern Gaza remain under attack
Five killed, 17 wounded in Israeli attacks on two homes in Nuseirat refugee camp while reports say Israeli forces used explosives to destroy buildings in the centre of Rafah.
Gaza officials say 15,694 children killed and 17,000 are without parents after 250 days of Israel’s war on Gaza.

09/09/2023

09/09/2023

07/09/2023

Gabon’s military says deposed President Ali Bongo ‘free’ to travel abroad
Bongo’s release comes after General Brice Oligui Nguema sworn in as Gabon’s new head of state on Monday
Gabon’s deposed president, Ali Bongo Ondimba, has been released from house arrest and is free to leave the country for medical treatment, the military which removed him from power last month has said.

Bongo was toppled from power on August 30, shortly after being declared the winner of much-criticised elections that would have seen him extend his 14-year rule as president.
“Given his state of health, the former President of the Republic Ali Bongo Ondimba is free to move about. He may, if he wishes, travel abroad for medical checkups,” Gabon’s military spokesman Colonel Ulrich Manfoumbi said in a statement read on national television on Wednesday evening.

The statement announcing Bongo’s release from house arrest was signed by General Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema, who was sworn in as Gabon’s new head of state on Monday.

07/09/2023

Russia blasts ‘inhumanity’ of US sending depleted uranium shells to Ukraine
Provision of controversial depleted uranium ammunition for US tanks is part of new $1bn assistance package to Kyiv.
Russia has denounced as inhuman a plan by the United States to provide the Ukrainian military with ammunition containing depleted uranium.

The Pentagon said on Wednesday that the controversial arms for US-made Abrams tanks would be part of a new military package worth up to $175m, out of more than $1bn in civilian and defence support that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced during a visit in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv.
“The administration’s decision to supply weapons with depleted uranium is an indicator of inhumanity,” Russia’s embassy in Washington said on the Telegram messaging app following the announcement.

“Clearly, with its idea of inflicting a ‘strategic defeat’, Washington is prepared to fight not only to the last Ukrainian but also to do away with entire generations,” the embassy said.

“The US is deliberately transferring weapons with indiscriminate effects,” it added.

“It is fully aware of the consequences: explosions of such munitions result in the formation of a moving radioactive cloud. Small particles of uranium settle in the respiratory tract, lungs, esophagus, accumulate in kidneys and liver, cause cancer and lead to the inhibition of the whole organism’s functions.”

Along with the depleted uranium shells for tanks that the US plans to deliver to Ukraine, the new military assistance package includes Javelin anti-tank missiles, tactical air navigation systems and additional ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), according to the Pentagon.

While the United Kingdom sent depleted uranium munitions to Ukraine earlier this year, this will be the first US shipment to Ukraine of the controversial armour-piercing shells and it is set to stir controversy over the use of such weapons on the battlefield.

The US was widely criticised recently for sending cluster bombs to Ukraine, despite concerns over the dangers such weapons pose to civilians.

07/09/2023

‘Islamophobic policy’: French high school goes on strike over abaya ban
Teachers and students of a school in the Seine-Saint-Denis suburb are protesting against the government’s new measures.
Teachers and students of a French high school have gone on strike in protest against the government’s decision to ban abaya and qamis – long and loose garments worn by some Muslim women and men, respectively – in public schools.

“We want to distance ourselves from the government’s Islamophobic policy,” read a statement from the protest group at the Maurice Utrillo high school in Stains, Seine-Saint-Denis, calling for a strike which started on Wednesday.